As Osprey chicks grow they tend to go through several stages. First is the wobbly head stage where chicks have just enough strength to hold their heads up for the female to feed them. By the middle of the next week, they are likely to begin the reptilian stage, where they look like feathered dinosaurs. The oldest chick is now nearly a week old so it is somewhere in the middle – the squabbling stage. If you’ve been watching the webcam today you may have seen this…

Perhaps the aggressive chick was just hungry? In an environment where food is scarce, it would be more likely for the smallest chick to bear the brunt of this aggression but this is certainly not the case in Manton Bay. 5R has proved that he is a fantastic fisherman over the years so this year’s chicks have been getting a constant supply of good-sized fish. The behaviour we have seen today may just be a typical ‘play fight’ between the oldest two chicks. The youngest chick, still in the wobbly head stage, wasn’t involved. Instead it enjoyed the sunny weather and spent most of the day sleeping, perfect for a Bank Holiday weekend!